Price discrimination or uniform pricing: Which colludes more?

Conventional wisdom attributes different economic outcomes of uniform pricing and price discrimination to the heterogeneity in market conditions or market participants, such as differences in demand elasticity or production costs. We offer a new explanation for the observed differences that relates to behavioral aspects rather than demand- or supply-side effects. In particular, in a symmetric Bertrand duopoly laboratory experiment, for which theory predicts no differences between the two pricing regimes, we find that tacit price collusion is systematically higher under price discrimination than under uniform pricing. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.